Abstract

IntroductionIn the late 1800s, Newton B. Pierce described a severe grapevine disease occurring in Anaheim, California. This disease was initially called Anaheim disease (Pierce, ) and was first attributed to a viral infection because: (i) no causal microorganism could be cultured from the infected vines; and (ii) the disease was graft transmissible. However, electron micrographs indicated bacterial‐like bodies in the xylem of infected plants (Hopkins and Mollenhauer, ), and a bacterium was subsequently cultured from infected plants (Davis et al., ). Koch's postulates were then completed, ultimately confirming Xylella fastidiosa as the causal agent of what was eponymously named Pierce's disease (PD). In addition to PD, this bacterium has been implicated as the causal agent of many other significant plant diseases (Fig. ). The severity of the citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC) epidemic in Brazil (Bove and Ayres, ) and PD epidemic in southern California (Siebert, ) prompted sequencing of the 9a5c CVC strain genome (Simpson et al., ), followed by the Temecula 1 PD strain of X. fastidiosa (Van Sluys et al., ). Notably, X. fastidiosa was the first plant‐pathogenic bacterium to have its genome sequenced. Subsequently, genomes of other X. fastidiosa isolates have been sequenced (Chen et al., ; Giampetruzzi et al., ; Guan et al., ),

Journal

Molecular Plant Pathology
– Wiley

Published: Jan 1, 2018

Keywords: ; ; ; ; ;

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References

Evaluation of tolerance to Pierce's disease and Botrytis in transgenic plants of Vitis vinifera L. expressing the pear PGIP gene